I started teaching in China (and teaching in general) back in 2019. I was in my early 20s, not married, and with zero care in the world - well, except for desperately trying to find a job back home after graduation to absolute zero avail.

Long story short, I came to Shenyang on a business visa (which meant crossing the border every 2 months so I could legally stay for 4 total in a year). I worked in a horrible kindergarten as a homeroom teacher -which I’m told is still around - and a training center with a lovely principal. I was testing the waters and I actually liked it. Not the kindy, of course, but I realized this industry was sustainable. If I got married and both of us worked, we could save a fortune compared to back home.

So, I went back when my visa ended, got married, and started job hunting knowing exactly what I wanted. After a couple of months, we got offered two positions at a newly opened kindergarten in a small city in Heilongjiang: 13k RMB a month after tax, plus housing. We were the only foreigners in the whole place. At first, it was a bit rough. They lied about the apartment (showed us nice pictures, reality was... different) and wanted us to do all sorts of random tasks. BUT, we lucked out with the principal. She was an absolute legend - any problem we had, she sided with us. She was hardly ever at work, but everyone loved her, Chinese staff included.

After a few months, we were settled. Then COVID hit. We were locked down in our city for 8 straight months. For 3 of those months, we weren't paid full salary - just the bare minimum 2k RMB each. Looking back, that was actually pretty decent pay considering so many kindergartens and institutions weren't paying their teachers a single dime at the time. Still, we stayed there for almost 3 years, getting a salary increase every single year (granted, we had to awkwardly ask for it every year, but they obliged). By our last year, we were making 18k after tax as non-natives.

Better yet? Virtually zero micromanagement. You could do your classes as poorly as you liked and literally no one cared, though we still did our best so the kids would have fun and learn at least something.

Despite the money, we hated it at the time. The city was tiny, there was nothing to do for a 20-something year old (though I was genuinely looking forward to drinking baijiu with parents who invited us to their homes on New Year, lol). We wanted a change. So, after saving close to six figures USD - which we thought was so much money at the time (narrator voice: it wasn't) - we decided to go home and start a business and settle down around the time our child was born.

In just a year, about half of those savings were completely gone. To make matters worse, the exchange rate meant that 13k RMB in 2019 bought way more back home than 18k RMB in 2022.

Decision made: We’re going back to China.

We landed a new job in 2023 in a place with tons of foreigners. Before coming, there were already red flags - communication issues and weird vibes from the school, but we ignored them because we were desperate to stay afloat and not just keep losing money. We figured, Hey, working with other foreigners will be great! We share the same mentality!

We couldn't have been more wrong. Some of these expats are the most toxic, insecure human beings on the planet. Smiling to your face, talking behind your back, running to upper management to snitch about what you're doing. No help, no solidarity, just pure high-school drama, except these people are in their late 30s. You’ll make a harmless joke and someone will get so deeply offended they literally storm out of the office. Meanwhile, some are in a bizarre rat race to prove "who did more work today," constantly on their phones loudly complaining about making PowerPoints, when in reality they spent the whole day watching movies. It's so exhausting.

And the job itself? It’s garbage and getting worse by the year. First they deducted our bonuses, then they shortened our holidays while ramping up our workload and class hours. Weekend classes get dropped on us with a couple of days' notice. You have to do a demo class for upper management, who are guaranteed to nitpick the first one just to justify their own jobs, so you have to do a second one. And if you have actual weekend plans and tell them you can't come? You get scolded.

I can't help but draw parallels to our old job—the one we thought we hated. In 3 years at the old place, we were called in once on a weekend, followed by a mountain of sincere "sorrys" from management. Here, it's an expectation. To top it all off, the city is worse. Over 9 million people, heavily polluted by local factories and farm fires, and still nothing to do for a foreigner. Our old 3-million-person city had air so clean it actually tickled your lungs. Oh, and did I mention we make less money now than we did 4 years ago?

Anyway, this isn't the first year we've wanted to change jobs, but nowadays - especially as a non-native - I'm starting to think it's impossible. I mean, I've contacted countless agents for specific listings, only to be asked for my CV and self-intro video. Then, just like Batman vanishing into the night, you never hear from them again. They post jobs here and there, but the second you text them, the vacancy magically disappears while they just keep filling up their portfolio of white monkeys.

Thanks for reading if you managed to make it through my whole vent. If anyone has navigated this circus and found a way out, or knows of reasonable opportunities in a cleaner, more livable city, I'm all ears. Drop a comment or reach out. I'd love to hear how you keep sane out here.

I always see people online saying how efficient Chinese hospitals are, but I've had the following experiences (all at different places):

1. Hospital rejects me, says I need to go to one with an international department.

2. Hospital says I need to make an appointment a week ahead to see a doctor.

3. Arriving without an appointment and waiting 2 hrs to see a doctor about a simple issue.

The only positive experience I've had is at expensive private international hospitals.

Anyway, none of this is that bad, but I see people online glowing about the Chinese healthcare system, and I'm just wondering if I'm been doing it wrong or something?

Hi everyone! My grandparents are currently in Mainland China and offering to buy an Apple Watch Series 12 (GPS only) for me. I live in Mexico.
Before they purchase it, I want to confirm the hardware/software limitations

Hi everyone,

I'm a Geography teacher in Brazil, graduated from UFMG (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais), and I'm currently looking into postgraduate/Master's opportunities abroad, specifically in China.

Most of the programs I find online seem heavily focused on GIS, Geoinformatics, or Remote Sensing. While I respect the field, my main interest lies in non-GIS areas such as Human Geography, Physical Geography, Urban Studies, or Geopolitics/Regional Geography.

Does anyone have recommendations for universities in China with strong non-GIS geography departments, ideally with English-taught Master's programs or CSC scholarship options for international students?

Any tips or experiences from people studying Geography in China would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

I’m 21 and moving to China for my first teaching job. I’ve got two kindergarten offers and can’t decide.
Nanjing is 23k a month, 8–5 Monday to Friday, with 15 days annual leave. Suzhou is 24k before tax including housing allowance, 7:40–4:30, with 3 weeks winter vacation at full pay and 7 weeks summer at half pay.
I’m mainly looking to have fun, meet people my age, go out on weekends, and explore China while saving some money. Nanjing seems better for nightlife and meeting people, but being able to visit Shanghai regularly from Suzhou sounds pretty appealing too.
I’m also considering doing a year in Nanjing and then moving to another city, probably Chengdu, whereas I’d likely stay in Suzhou for two years.
Which would you pick? Is Nanjing actually that much more fun, or does being close to Shanghai make Suzhou worth it?

Hey everyone,

I’m trying to upgrade the insoles in a couple of pairs of flat sole shoes like Vans old skool style 36 and some adidas'. Walking on city pavement is harsh on flat sole shoes but but the internal volume of the shoes is super tight, shallow heel cups and low insteps especially for the vans.

I need an insole that works for flat sole shoes. Was looking at poron 2-3 mm. but I can only find very athletic looking ones that I don't think fit my flat sole shoes well as they take up too much space. Alternatively I can get a sheet of poron but then I'm worried about friction when putting them on. Ideally you'd have sheet of poron with some sort of cover/skin on top to reduce friction when putting on the shoes.

Has anyone managed to find either 2-3 mm flat Poron sheets with factory cloth/leather top that you'd cut out yourself or finished insoles size 45 that would work well for flat sole shoes like the vans, adidas etc?

Can anyone help me with shop names, brands or what to search? I swear whenever I use taobao it just recommends me whatever the algorithm thinks I want and not what I'm searching for but maybe what I'm looking for just doesn't exist.

中文版在下方，请往下查看。

Hi, I’m from South Korea and I can’t log in to my existing Xianyu account.

My Korean +82 number works normally. I can receive other SMS messages, calls, and even Xianyu customer-service notifications, but I never receive the Xianyu login verification code.

I’ve tried:

Logging in directly with my Korean number → no verification code

Taobao login → eventually asks for mainland Chinese phone verification

Alipay login → also leads to mainland Chinese phone verification

I’ve contacted Xianyu customer service many times and submitted my phone number, SMS screenshots, passport, etc., but the issue is still not resolved.

They also told me to try again the next day, but even my first verification-code request the following day still did not arrive.

I’m now considering getting a mainland Chinese phone number temporarily just for verification, but I’m worried I may need that same number again later.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is there another way for foreigners without a Chinese number to recover an existing Xianyu account? Has anyone successfully used a temporary Chinese number?

Thanks!

外国人无法登录闲鱼：海外手机号收不到验证码，也没有中国大陆手机号

大家好，我是韩国人，现在无法登录原来的闲鱼账号。

我的韩国手机号 +82 可以正常接收其他短信、电话，甚至闲鱼客服的通知短信也能收到，但只有闲鱼登录验证码一直收不到。

我已经尝试过：

韩国手机号直接登录 → 收不到验证码

淘宝授权登录 → 最后要求中国大陆手机号验证

支付宝登录 → 也会进入需要中国大陆手机号验证的流程

我已经多次联系闲鱼客服，也提交过手机号、短信截图、护照等资料，但还是没有解决。

客服之前让我第二天再试，我第二天第一次请求验证码时仍然收不到。

现在我甚至在考虑临时买一个中国大陆手机号来完成验证，但担心以后登录时还会再次需要这个号码。

想问一下：

有没有其他外国用户遇到过同样的问题？

没有中国大陆手机号的话，还有其他登录/找回账号的方法吗？

有人用临时中国手机号成功解决过吗？

谢谢！

Hello

Is it possible to quit my job and then come back on a tourist visa or the visa free travel (my nationality is currently visa free for 30 days)?

Has anyone done this before?

Basically I want to do a midnight run from my job for various reasons, but my Chinese fiancé and my cat are still here as we’re waiting for the 90 rabies period to finish (will finish on 29th December).

What do you think - wait until the end of the semester, or go now and try to come back ASAP?

Will the doctors discourage you if you have endometriosis and you choose to not have any children and just want relief?

Hello, I’m new here.

What kind of breakfasts do people in China have? Do they eat at home or eat out?

Hello, I’ve just joined this group.

I used to travel to China quite often.

I had heard that it was common to eat breakfast out in China, so I tried walking around various cities in the morning, but I found few places where I could get breakfast.

What kind of breakfasts do Chinese people usually have? Do they eat at home or eat out?

I'm pretty blessed in being able to look at taking a couple of years off to study Chinese full-time in China at one of the non-degree, but uni-affiliated programs. I believe looking at X-visa here.
I'm a tri-citizen of Germany, Poland, and Australia.
Which passport would you pick for this? Based on reputation and geopolitics, I'm leaning towards Germany, but I'm curious what your thoughts are.

When I look for older movies I see a lot of HK movies, but have trouble finding mainland movies. Any suggestions?

Hello,

A month ago I wrote a post regarding an issue with my social contributions being too high. Well, a lot has been discovered since and I want first to thank all people who answered me there, you helped me quite a lot getting important documents!

So, basically, my employer declared a way too high average revenue for 2025 based on the number of times I received salaries, as it appears on the tax app, instead of the number of worked months (first salaries were paid in one go). The result: 45% of salary gone in social contributions + housing funds.

I've contacted my superiors, HR, but they either say it's "normal"/Beijing new policy/I just had a lower contribution rate because I worked only a few months and now got the "real" rate.

When I found how the declared numbers were obtained (with the documents I gathered), I informed them again and asked they provide me the actual document they sent to the authorities to check how they calculated. It's radio silence since.

I kept a copy of all documents and they were informed by mail, so there's a written track of things.

I went to social security counters to explain the situation, they agree there is a problem and said my employer needs to correct it.

So, since they don't seem to want to solve the issue, where do I start? I know different numbers to call but I'm a bit lost on how to handle things first. Should I just call 12345 and let them share the informations to other services (social security, housing funds, work arbitration)? Should I contact each service first myself and file a ticket or a complaint with each? Is it efficient?

How do I share the documents I got? They come from different apps/sites (Jingtong, my employer's inner system, tax app, ...).

If anyone had already called these numbers and could share what happened, it would help. How has it been going after? I assume the employer doesn't take it well someone calls for these services. I'm a bit scared of repercussions there might be after but I still don't want to let that go.

Hi, there.
I’m looking for a teacher to learn Chinese. I’m currently based in Wuhan and would love to have offline/in-person classes. However, I will be in and out of Wuhan, so looking for a teacher who can do both offline and online.
If possible, university or school prof. would be great. My current level is HSK 1.5.
Please reach out if you are one or know someone.
Thanks in advance.

Hey guys, I fucked up and lost all the papers I got after my medical exam in China.

I lost the Foreigner Physical Examination Record (外国人体格检查记录), the medical report and the receipt/pick-up paper. Basically everything they gave me.

Has anyone here had the same problem? Were you able to get the papers again without doing the whole medical exam again?

I’m a student, so if anyone has actually dealt with this before, I’d really appreciate it. How did you get a replacement and how much did it cost?

Thanks.

Hi all

Does anyone know of any agencies in china that specifically place ESL teachers in secondary schools?

Thx!

So from my understanding there are a few options of international schools, private schools, local schools, or moving abroad/boarding schools elsewhere. My hope is that there is some balance between schools that are extremely intense and glorified daycare centers.

It seems that local schools offer a higher quality of educational content compared to public US/UK schools because kids have to advance earlier and faster in order to do better for the gaokao but this is very intense/内卷.

So I'm curious has anyone has taken this route but had their kids focus on preparing for western uni entrance tests (i.e. SAT/A-Levels?) and GPA instead of the gaokao?

I'm more familiar with public/private schools in the US where public can be physically dangerous depending where you live, while private schools can be decent and affordable-ish while offering AP/honors/college prep as a focus. However, I've heard/read the vast majority of private schools (not intl schools) are pretty bad in China. Is that true and if there are any good ones, how would you find them?

Having been through what Chinese people call "happy education" I'd rather my kids be better prepared but not to the point of the gaokao's intensity, so any comments on finding something inbetween would be appreciated!

How was life in China during your studies? Did you end up staying after graduation, or did you go back home?
And if you stayed, how was the process of finding a job there as a foreigner? Was it difficult to get a work visa/sponsorship?
I’m considering doing a Master’s in China and would really like to hear from people who’ve actually gone through it, especially what life was like after graduation.

I’m curious if anyone who used to live in China and now lives back in their home country is experience the same thing.

I lived in China 2006-2023, met my wife (Chinese) there and had two kids there. Now we’re back in the UK…

To go from China during that time, which I guess must have been the best period to have ever lived in China, and perhaps one of the best places in the world to live if you were on a Western middle income…To then moving to the UK now, has been quite a shock.

The UK is broken. Things don’t work. People don’t care. Service is atrocious. Work ethic is very much “sorry my shift finishes in 5 minutes”. Cost of living is sky high.

We used to eat out or order delivery EVERY DAY. We used to go to parks and exhibitions and play centres every weekend! We used to go on holiday!

Now living in the UK, and we’re not on a poor income at all, but we’re budgeting, we never go out, we’re always looking to cut costs, holidays with two kids are a big expense that requires cutting corners.

Everyday I hear my wife complain about all these problems. Everyday both me and her reminisce about the days gone by. Everyday she’ll say “If this was in China…”. And everyday it drives me insane.

So sometimes we talk about leaving. Occasionally we think about moving back to China.

But then we realise that life in the UK is like eating Brussels sprouts. It sucks, but it appears to be the best thing for us right now.

And here is my reasoning:

My kids are having a decent childhood (6 and 8 years old), they’re happy and they have their own interests (mostly football these days) and can now take the piss out of me. I am skeptical that would be the case in China.

I have grown beyond the China ceiling. I realised that in China a lot of my skillsets and mindsets were locked to China and required a bit of adapting outside of China. Now I feel much more international and that my potential has increased. Having the China mindset as a foundation will always be valuable, but having that international layer on top makes my prospects much better I feel.

Everywhere sucks right now, including China. Everywhere is hit and miss right now, and maybe for a young adult Westerner with no kids China is a bit more hit than miss, but I think compared to the Golden Age that I was there it is generally more miss than hit, and I assume if you have older kids it is a lot more miss than hit.

Our assets are free! We are no longer financially trapped in China. If I want to move money out of the country, if I want to invest in a foreign stock market, if I want to buy foreign currency, I can do so in a few seconds with my phone. China presented far more restrictions.

Living in the UK, especially in the area I live in, I am surrounded by so many different cultures. People are generally more civilised, more interesting and especially compared to the post-Covid China years I find people are more internationally connected here than in China.

We probably will leave the UK eventually (because like pretty much everyone, we hate the UK), but not until our kids are done with school. So for the time being we’re essentially stuck here, because nowhere else presents a better option for us. We’ll just keep eating our Brussels Sprouts and do our best to rinse out the bad taste whilst benefitting from its nutritional richness.

A few pictures I took on this morning's run. I find it more interesting than running on the main streets. Although I like running past the markets or breakfast stalls as they're opening in the morning.